Wireless

1. 802.11a has an ideal range of 75-150 feet for the unit past that and you can expect around 56k for an average connection and a great deal of interference can be expected such as lost signal ect. it is rated at 11 mb/s at maximum efficiency and is incompatible with b/g type routers and cards. you can expect to see the A protocol phased out over the next few years sicne none of the later standards are expected to be backwards compatible with a since it is on a difference frequency. However, don't despair most hardware vendors are create multi cards that can act across all the protocols. Intel just announced it this week for thier first production cards. But i would still recommend against 11A there simply is not a good enough reason to use it and put up wit the lessened range and lower level of interoperability as compared to b/g types.

2. 802.11b rated at 11mb/s it is the first widely accepted standard in the field of wireless networking, while WEP is weak and seriously broken it is better than nothing. Also further security such as WPA in the upcoming 11i release will add significant upgrades to the 11b arena and is expected to be able to upgrade current b/g systms to use the new set of standards since it is a change of protocol basis not chasis. It has a range of around 250-400 feet and is relatively stable at range.

3. 802.11g is rated at 54 mb/s has a range of 250-300 and is also stable. In all other ways it looks like 802.11b

As a Side note if you operate in a mixed environment i.e. using both 802.11b and g the entire network will run at the slowest common speed. so the best you'll get is 11mb/s and you will need to generally tweak the g type cards settings.

USB vs. PCMCIA cards. I've had bad luck with the USB type of cards largely because the USB type 1.2 has a slower thru put and the drivers don't hold the connection as well as a PCMCIA card does. Get a nice card and sell the USB external on e-Bay.

Cheers,
FyreMouse